AT PENPOINT
The need for a re-election to the office of Punjab Chief Minister shows the shambolic nature of the regime. At the Centre, though the central government is not suffering the sort of instability the Punjab is, it can hardly be said that it is settled. Perhaps the most potent symbol of its instability is the thin-ness of the majority on which it rests. Further, the ‘difficult decisions’ it has taken have not really brought about the economic change that was expected, particularly as far as inflation goes.
Hamza Shehbaz’s troubles centre around the fact that he was elected CM only because PTI defectors voted for him. Those defectors have now been unseated, but the votes they cast in his favour have been excluded from his total, which means that a re-election is again necessitated.
This is not the second stage election, where the CM elected does not have to have a majority of the 371 total membership of the House, but simply of the members present and voting. However, it is somewhat of a relief to see that no one is trying to revive the claims of Usman Buzdar, whose resignation had caused the vacancy.
When things were threatening to go awry for the PTI, Governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema came out with a rejection of Buzdar’s resignation, on the ground that it had been addressed to PTI chief Imran Khan, not the Governor. This was despite the resignation having been accepted by his predecessor, Ch Muhammad Sarwar.
Punjab has become crucial for a number of reasons, not least that Buzdar (through Farah Shezadi, a.k.a. Gogi) is one of the main figures in one of the major accusations of corruption against Imran Khan. The main federal accusation, which involves Malik Riaz, the property tycoon, will probably come to nothing, because Malik Riaz has friends all over the place, not least Asif Zardari, one of the pillars of the Shehbaz coalition.
The by-elections will be a general election on a small scale. These were all seats held by the PTI, so winning them becomes crucial for both parties. Losing them would mean that the sitting government could swing results. Also, it might also mean that the PTI was losing its appeal in the Punjab.
There is also the fact that Punjab has the majority of seats in the National Assembly. One of the major problems faced by the PTI was the poor governance of Usman Buzdar, not to mention the corruption allegations against him and his family. The province is also crucial to obtaining power. The PTI has been unable to crack interior Sindh, and though it has targeted the area it is iffy. Balochistan does not have many seats, and the PTI has not made many inroads there. It was obliged to work with local parties, whose switching brought down the government. True, electables come in large numbers from Punjab, but the majority are sticking to the party.
It is with reference to the next election that Punjab has become crucial. Though the province will be under a caretaker administration for the election, who governs in the run-up to the election is important, especially if the PTI can show an administration under Pervez Elahi that did a good job of governance. Ch Pervez may be at a greater advantage, because becoming CM might mean that he keeps alive his faction of the PML(Q), which seems headed for a split.
The by-elections thus become crucial, for if the PTI wins enough seats, then it will be able to deny the PML(N) the chief ministership. There will be no boycott of elections this time, and the PTI MPAs not having tendered their resignations, Of course, if Hamza does his job like his uncle and father before him, he will make sure than the majority of those seats flip. In that case, one can expect the PTI to cry foul, and to refuse to accept the results.
The by-elections will be a general election on a small scale. These were all seats held by the PTI, so winning them becomes crucial for both parties. Losing them would mean that the sitting government could swing results. Also, it might also mean that the PTI was losing its appeal in the Punjab. That would encourage the central government to have the PTI MNAs’ resignations accepted, except for those who apologized abjectly enough to join the floor-crossers in the Opposition.
It would be a major boost for the Shehbaz government, and imply that its narrative, that the petrol price and electricity tariff hikes are because of PTI mismanagement, and it should not have to carry the can, is making headway. The PTI narrative is that the present inflation and loadshedding must not be blamed on it, because it is out of office.
There is the rather unedifying spectacle of the country going through one of its worst economic crises, with the government and the opposition blaming each other for it, and neither offering a solution. The government’s management has not affected the crisis, and the PTI is still blaming the woes on the government being ‘imported’. The prospect for the ordinary citizen is therefore bleak.
Someone who has lived through the Musharraf era, the terms the PPP and the PML(N) had, then the PTI, have all resulted in the present situation. Of course, there have been external factors, such as covid-19 and the Russo-Ukrainian war, but basically, the solution to the common man’s problems are because no one has one. The parties and the military are shown as being as feckless as each other, and as the people in being unable to provide solutions.
The establishment has dismissed the PM in mid-term since 1988, four times. As the dismissal was by the President under the old Article 58 (2b), elections had to be held.
When Parliaments were restored in 2003 after there was an actual Martial Law, the presidential dissolution was off the table. Zafarullah Jamali resigned, Yousaf Reza Gilani and Nawaz Sharif were disqualified as MNAs, and Imran Khan was removed by a vote of no-confidence. In the last case, the government was also changed. In the three previous episodes, the Cabinets were more or less unchanged, apart from minor adjustments.
However, this is the first time any CM has been changed. Balochistan CMs get changed, but that has more to do with internal dynamics rather than any deep connection with the centre. This time, round the Punjab’s CM’s fall was intimately connected with the vote of no-confidence, as the job was being offered to Ch Pervez in exchange for support in the no-confidence motion.
Perhaps one of the reasons for this heightened profile is to be sought in Imran’s admission that he refused to replace Usman Buzdar.
Whom did he refuse? The same neutrals he feels let him down. The simple fact is that the Punjab includes the establishment’s recruiting grounds, and mismanagement in Punjab means dissatisfaction at the establishment’s decision to have the PTI run the province. It was only later that the establishment came to see that the problem was not Punjab, or Buzdar, but the PTI itself.
The coming by-elections, and CM’s election, should yield a victory for the incumbent. However, that will not do two things. One is to make the PTI accept the results. It will cry ‘foul’ no matter what. The other is that there will be no change on the economic front. It might be possible that slavish compliance will bring the IMF to grant Pakistan resumption of its ESAF, but relief is nowhere in sight, no matter which way the wind blows in Punjab.
